CPS boss gets $230,000 in raise, bonus

Beneby is praised for an 'outstanding job' in the areas in which he was evaluated.

By Tracy Idell Hamiltonthamilton@express-news.net

Updated 12:11 am, Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Photo: HELEN L. MONTOYA, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

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CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby

CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby

Photo: HELEN L. MONTOYA, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

CPS boss gets $230,000 in raise, bonus

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CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby received a $50,000 raise from the utility's board of trustees Monday, retaining his place as the second-highest-paid public official in San Antonio.

Beneby's base salary of $360,000 will go to $410,000 for his second year on the job, and he earned a bonus of $180,000 for meeting, and in some cases exceeding, the performance standards set by the board when he was hired a year ago.

The utility has retained its strong credit rating under Beneby, boosted safety at its power plants, increased customer satisfaction and pushed CPS closer to its goal of reaching 20 percent renewable energy capacity by 2020, according to the “CEO scorecard” released by the board.

Beneby has also increased the utility's transparency, routinely meeting with community groups of all stripes and releasing more information than the law requires, including the top 20 highest CPS salaries a year ago, though the state attorney general's office said then that only the top five had to be released.

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With a recent change in state law, all CPS Energy employee salaries are now public.

On top of that, Howard said, Beneby's plan to leverage the utility's buying power for economic development has resulted in five companies bringing potentially hundreds of new jobs to town, while the winning bid to build 400 megawatts of solar power for CPS is expected to bring millions of dollars more in local investment and more jobs.

The announcement of the winning bid is expected next week.

Former USAA Real Estate CEO Ed Kelley, CPS' newest board member, noted that even with the raise, Beneby's salary remains in the 50th percentile of CEO salaries for public- and investor-owned utilities.

The industry's 50th percentile is where CPS has historically aimed to have its employee salaries, a spokeswoman said.

During his tenure at USAA, Kelley noted, the financial services giant aimed for the 75th percentile, “to make sure we had a pay plan that was competitive across the industry.”

The increase does not raise Beneby's salary to the top amount earned by his predecessor, Milton Lee.

Before he turned day-to-day operations over to now-departed General Manager Steve Bartley in 2007, Lee earned a high of $613,000, including bonuses. He was making $200,000 before bonus pay at the time of his retirement last year.

But the raise kept Beneby above City Manager Sheryl Sculley, who in May was bumped up, per her contract, to $355,000 before bonus or incentive pay.

Beneby, thanking the board for its vote of confidence, said he would personally donate $25,000 this year and next year to some educational initiative in the name of former AT&T executive Charles E. Foster, who served as CPS board chairman before Howard.

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Foster, who said bringing Beneby to the utility was his greatest accomplishment as a board member, died recently of a rare form of lung cancer.

Beneby said later that he would first talk to Foster's family about the donation but that perhaps it would be used for something connected to the San Antonio Independent School District.

Earlier in the board meeting, he referenced perhaps his only public misstep to date; the revelation that he approved a $5,000 expenditure to the Republican Party of Texas. When the donation was made public, Beneby acknowledged the error. The money was returned.

He also retained outside counsel to review the utility's sponsorship policy, “to ferret out the weaknesses and make it more robust,” he said. Recommendations will likely be presented to the board by next month.

Beneby's current salary can now be found with all 3,626 CPS employees in a searchable salary database at mySA.com.

Salary information is now public information thanks to a new law authored by state Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan. In the past, public power companies, CPS included, argued that salaries were competitive information and therefore exempt from public scrutiny.

Senate Bill 1613 added more specificity about what public power companies can claim as competitive, such as generation costs, capital improvement plans, bidding and pricing information, and customer data.

In addition to salary information, money that public utilities spend on lobbying is now also public.

The salary information shows that in addition to Beneby, 152 employees earn more than $100,000 annually, while 306 make less than $30,000, not including overtime or bonuses.

While the salary data is current, the database also includes overtime from 2010. CPS paid out more than $12 million in overtime that year.

A spokeswoman said overtime is most commonly paid in areas with 24/7 operations, such as service restoration, power plant operations and information technology support.

A sample of the utility's pay scale shows journeyman electricians, machinists, cable splicers and mechanics earn between $64,195 and $67,572. “Trainees” for those positions make between $31,229 and $52,618. Meter readers of all types were paid between $48,360 and $57,525.

Financial and other analysts earn between $55,430 and $113,312.

Clerks, which are entry-level positions that require little school or experience, earn the least, averaging $22,489.